Simon Wessely is Professor and Head of the
Department of Psychological Medicine and Vice Dean for Academic
Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry (IoP), King’s College
London. He is a clinical liaison psychiatrist, with a particular
interest in unexplained symptoms and syndromes. As Vice Dean he has
overall responsibility for undergraduate and postgraduate
psychiatry training, and is particularly committed to sharing his
enthusiasm for clinical psychiatry with medical students. He also
remains research active, continuing to publish on many areas of
psychiatry, psychological treatments, epidemiology and military
health.

Born and educated in Sheffield, he studied
medical sciences and history of art at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and
then finished his medical training at University College Oxford,
graduating in 1981. He obtained his medical membership in
Newcastle, before moving to London’s Maudsley Hospital to
train in psychiatry, where he also obtained a Master’s and
Doctorate in epidemiology. His doctoral thesis was on crime and
schizophrenia. Professor Wessely has been a consultant liaison
psychiatrist at King’s College Hospital and the Maudsley Hospital
since 1991, where he set up the first NHS service for sufferers
from chronic fatigue syndrome.

He became Director of the Chronic Fatigue
Research Unit at King’s in 1994 and of the Gulf War Illness
Research Unit in 1996, which then became the King’s Centre for
Military Health Research, a unique collaboration between the IoP
and the KCL Department of War Studies, in 2003. Its flagship
project, a large-scale ongoing study of the health and wellbeing of
the UK Armed Forces, has had a direct impact on public policy and
on forms of treatment and help for Service personnel. He is
Civilian Consultant Advisor in Psychiatry to the British Army in
which capacity he has visited services in Bosnia, Iraq and
Afghanistan. He is a trustee of Combat Stress, the principal UK
charity for veterans with mental health problems, and his
contributions to veterans’ charities include cycling (slowly) seven
times to Paris to raise funds for service personnel in need.

He established the first clinical trials unit
in this country dedicated to mental health, and is a Foundation
Senior Investigator of the National Institute for Health Research,
and Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. In 2012 he was
awarded the first Nature “John Maddox Prize” for Standing Up for
Science, and was knighted in the 2013 New Year’s Honours
List. In 2014 he was elected as the next President of the
Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Professor Wessely has over 750 original
publications, with a particular emphasis on the boundaries of
medicine and psychiatry, unexplained symptoms and syndromes,
military health, population reactions to adversity, epidemiology,
history and other fields. He has co authored a text book on
chronic fatigue syndrome, a history of military psychiatry and a
book on randomised controlled trials, although none are best
sellers. He is active in public engagement activities,
speaking regularly on radio, TV and at literary and science
festivals as well as writing columns for many national
newspapers.

Dr Laurence Mynors-Wallis FRCPsych

Laurence is a Consultant General Adult
Psychiatrist and the Medical Director of Dorset HealthCare
University NHS Foundation Trust. He was an Associate Dean of
the College from 2007-2010, leading on Revalidation. He
played a key role in developing Good Psychiatric Practice
(3rd Edition), the College Guidance on Revalidation and
Appraisal and in Outcome Measures to be used in Psychiatric
Practice.

Laurence’s priorities as Registrar include
recruitment into psychiatry, leadership, improved benefits for
psychiatrists from membership of the College (APT on line is now a
membership benefit), outcomes and ensuring psychiatrists have jobs
that enable them to deliver high quality care.

Dr Wendy Burn FRCPsych

Wendy Burn became a Consultant Old Age
Psychiatrist in Leeds in West Yorkshire in 1990 and currently works
fulltime in a community post.

Her service is responsible for a large number
of patients with dementia at all stages of the illness as well as
elderly people with a range of psychiatric problems. She has worked
closely with the Alzheimer’s Society and is a Clinical Lead for
Dementia in the Yorkshire Strategic Clinical Network. In this role
she is involved in a number of projects to improve the standard of
care for people with dementia.

She has been involved in the organisation and
delivery of postgraduate training since she started as a
consultant. She has held many roles in Education including College
Tutor, Training Programme Director, Director of Postgraduate
Medical Education, Chair of Specialty Training committee and
Associate Medical Director for Doctors in Training. She set up the
Yorkshire School of Psychiatry and was the first Head of
School.

On behalf of the College she has been an
Examiner, a Senior Organiser of clinical examinations, a Deputy
Convenor, Regional Coordinator for CPD and the Deputy Lead for
National Recruitment. She became College Dean in 2011.

Professor Nick Craddock FRCPsych

Nick is Professor at the Department of Psychological Medicine
and Neurology at Cardiff University. His research group uses
clinical and molecular genetic investigations to better understand
the causes and triggers of bipolar spectrum mood disorders and
psychosis. Nick heads the Cardiff University Psychiatry
Service and his clinical interests lie in the diagnosis and
management of bipolar spectrum disorders.